Popular smoking articles, such as cigarettes, typically have a substantially cylindrical rod shaped structure and include a charge, roll, or column of smokable material such as shredded tobacco (e.g., in cut filler form) surrounded by a paper wrapper thereby forming a so-called “smokable rod” or “tobacco rod.” Normally, a cigarette has a cylindrical filter element aligned in an end-to-end relationship with the tobacco rod. Typically, a filter element comprises cellulose acetate tow plasticized using a plasticizer such as triacetin, and the tow is circumscribed by a paper material known as “plug wrap.”
The filter element may be attached to one end of the tobacco rod using a circumscribing wrapping material known as “tipping material” or “tipping paper,” in order to provide a so-called “filtered cigarette.” More particularly, the tipping material, which may be air impermeable, may circumscribe at least a portion of both the filter element and the tobacco rod to secure the filter element to the tobacco rod. The inner surface of the tipping material may be fixedly secured to the outer surface of the plug wrap circumscribing the filter tow and the outer surface of the wrapping material/paper wrapper surrounding the smokable material of the tobacco rod, using a suitable adhesive. Accordingly, the filter element and the tobacco rod may be connected to one another. The adhesive may also function to secure the overlapping ends of the tipping material circumscribing the filter element and tobacco rod. The tipping material and plug wrap may be perforated in order to provide dilution of drawn mainstream smoke with ambient air.
The above described steps may be performed largely, or entirely, by high-speed automated machinery. During automated production of cigarettes, certain defects may occur. It follows that, due to the high speed nature of the cigarette manufacturing process, many of the defects that may occur may not be readily apparent or otherwise detected before the completed smoking article is packaged for sale. As such, defects may not be discovered until an end user opens the package of smoking articles. Such a situation is generally undesirable to the perception of the quality of the product. As such, there exists a need for an apparatus and method for inspecting smoking articles, such as filtered cigarettes, for defects prior to the products being packaged for distribution and sale. It may also be desirable for such a solution to be readily implemented with respect to existing cigarette production machinery.